During the National Two Sessions in 2026, Lei Maoduan, deputy to the National People's Congress and head of Shanxi Yingbo Mihuai Development Co., Ltd., attended the meeting with a number of suggestions, one of which was about supporting the high-quality development of the rice locust industry and building a solid foundation for preventing return to poverty.
Lei Maoduan said in an interview with Jiupai News that the rice locust industry is a special Chinese herbal medicine industry specially developed for barren mountains and drylands. Because of its unique advantages of being extremely resistant to drought and barrenness, outstanding economic benefits, and strong ecological restoration capabilities, it has been rapidly promoted in barren mountains and drywalls areas with harsh natural conditions and low traditional agricultural benefits. At present, the planting area of Diyun City alone has reached more than 300,000 acres, and has spread to more than 10 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) across the country, including Shaanxi, Gansu, Hebei, and Henan, with a total area of more than 2 million acres, benefiting millions of farmers in mountainous areas. It has become an irreplaceable and important industry for consolidating and expanding poverty alleviation achievements in ecologically fragile areas and promoting rural revitalization.
Lei Maoduan, deputy to the National People's Congress. Picture/provided by interviewee
Lei Maoduan found that at present, most of the rice locust production areas are located in remote mountainous areas with harsh natural conditions. Agricultural production infrastructure such as field roads, soil and water conservation, and soil fertility improvement are seriously lagging behind. The situation of "depending on the weather" has not fundamentally changed. It is difficult to support the high-quality development requirements of scale, standardization, and branding. The industrial foundation for consolidating the results of poverty alleviation is still fragile.
He also added that there is a lack of professional national-level rice locust industrial engineering technology research and development institutions across the country, and the top-level design and stable mechanism for the deep integration of industry, academia, and research have not yet been formed. The systematic protection and innovative utilization system of Sophora japonica germplasm resources is not yet perfect, and the main varieties still face market iteration pressure. New varieties with high yield, high resistance and high added value require a long breeding cycle and high technical requirements, making it difficult to meet the strategic needs of rapid industrial upgrading and restricting the core competitiveness and sustainable development of the industry.
In addition, he noticed that the current industry still mainly sells raw materials of primary agricultural products, sophora rice, and most of the profit margin is lost in the processing and circulation link. The extraction and utilization of high-value active ingredients such as rutin and quercetin in sophora rice is still at the initial stage; the development of high value-added terminal products such as health foods, medicines, and daily chemical products for the big health market is seriously insufficient, resulting in the failure to maximize industrial benefits, weak ability to resist market risks, and a weak foundation for farmers to continue to increase their income. Moreover, the coordination mechanism among entities in various aspects of the industry is not yet complete, and the model of leading enterprises as the core and linking all parties to form a community of interests and values needs to be strengthened.
Therefore, Lei Maoduan suggested the layout and construction of a "National Sophora japonica germplasm resource bank" and the supporting construction of an improved seed breeding base, which should be included in the national forest germplasm resource protection and utilization system. Systematically carry out the census, collection, preservation, identification and evaluation of Sophora japonica germplasm resources across the country, and establish a national germplasm resource information sharing platform. At the same time, we support relying on this resource bank to carry out targeted breeding and joint research on new varieties with high yield, high resistance, and high added value, providing a solid "chip" guarantee for the sustained and high-quality development of the industry.
He also suggested creating a "national-level high-quality development demonstration zone for the entire rice locust industry chain" and building standardized planting and improvement projects, intensive processing and industrial cluster cultivation projects, and industrial integration and brand building projects. Support the development of new business formats such as Mihuai-themed ecological tourism and popular science research, and uniformly create and promote the "Yuncheng Mihuai" regional public brand, making it a demonstration model for the high-quality development of the country's characteristic ecological industries in arid and semi-arid areas. At the same time, the "National Forestry and Grassland Administration Mihuai Engineering Technology Research Center" was established to focus on key common technical problems in the industry, carry out applied basic research and engineering technology research and development, and strengthen the scientific and technological support engine. At the same time, the rice locust industry will be included in the national key industrial sequence of ecologically enriching the people, and long-term stable policy attention will be given.
